Nov 4, 2019
We packed up and moved out of our East Village studio, after 5 great years in the neighborhood.
I first signed a least here right after moving to NYC from Idaho, before I even had a job. I moved just after completing a bachelors, later in life than is customary. I was bright eyed with a fresh design degree but no design experience, really. My resume included many years working retail, a stent of time caretaking a chateau in France, some teaching in China and Singapore, and a free flow of experience serving coffee.
Looking back, there were many reasons to doubt I’d make it in NY, but I had a dream, grit, and enough in my savings to pay rent for a few months- and I was willing to risk it all.
Like all things that begin and end, there is something to celebrate and something to reflect upon. After 5 years, I can say I made it and I’ve built a life in NY I love. It’s felt against the odds. I found a job, I made friends, things started, things ended, I fell in love, I made mistakes, I danced, I created, I shared the space with my husband, I hosted friends from around the world, I returned here after 6 rounds of chemo, and also after having my breasts removed, the list goes... As I took my final moments in the space, I felt different than I know I would have last year. I wasn’t sad to let the space go. I knew it was time, but I also couldn’t help but feel some kind of unfinished business, some kind of hope about the past, in all it’s glory and all the ways it might have been better. We return the keys and closed the door to a home and a time to which we can never go back, letting go of what might have been.
I still keep finding myself wanting things to be one way or another, instead of the way that things are, a number of things at once. Learning to accept the complicated and mixed nature of things isn’t the easiest, but knowing that things are always in flux and that emotions can often seem in conflict is helping me see that it can be simple. What’s hard is forcing life into a box that says it all has to be defined.
This photo sums up my past week, my past year, maybe the past 5 years, and maybe my whole life. What a wild and magnificent ride we’re on.